Your Greatest Life: Overcoming Depression, Divorce and Critical Illness

By Marion Grace

Many of God’s people today feel they are drowning in problems and issues they are desperate to overcome. Help may be hard to find because many of these issues are “untouchable” in religious circles; they are uncomfortable, embarrassing, or just too difficult to answer. Many people struggle through every day hiding what is tearing them apart inside because they fear being judged, condemned, or feeling inferior.

Marion confronts head-on some of these challenging issues, drawing from her own difficult experiences and what she put to work in her life to overcome, joyfully thrive, and become more than a conqueror. Her life experiences are woven through revelation she has received from God’s Word. Her story provides relatable, understandable illustrations, and a point of contact that will bring you tangible compassion and achievable answers.

If you find yourself in an impossible trial, then walk with Marion through this journey of hope, faith, understanding, and triumph. In the end, you will know that God has an answer and it is within your grasp. Lift your head, my friend, and get ready to soar with the eagles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664233065

Marion Grace

Marion stands today as a living, breathing miracle and testimony of the overcoming power, love, and faithfulness of God when you put His Word in your heart. After years of depression and bitterness leading to divorce and a terminal cancer diagnosis, she shares her story of victory. Her boast is not in her Bible school training, but in the fact that she is an ordinary Christian just like you. This is her story of reaching deep inside in the midst of life’s crippling obstacles to bring back everything God had ever placed inside her. Her story is one of shame to value; struggle to victory; death sentence to peace and life. Marion’s goal is to help equip you, through her unique, transparent perspective, to live free no matter what life throws your way, and to live in the outrageous love and peace of God. Marion lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her husband Steve. She has three grown children and several grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2021 Marion Grace.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-3305-8 (sc)

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WestBow Press rev. date: 5/21/2021

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But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob,

And He who formed you, O Israel:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by your name;

You are Mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.

When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,

Nor shall the flame scorch you."

—Isaiah 43:1–2

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, without whom I

am nothing, thank you for using me for your glory.

To my children, who inspire me with their strength and tenacity

in life, my desire is to be an inspiration to you as well.

To my husband who has borne the burden of my

time in writing and the wackiness that resulted in

wisdom being eventually received, I thank you.

To Maureen, Arielle, and Candice who helped me so much

with what I am not good at, I appreciate you so much.

To you, my readers, I am honored that you have let me into

your lives for this time. I believe God led you here for a

reason. You are so precious in God’s eyes, and I trust you

will know that beyond the shadow of a doubt by the end

of our journey together toward his greatest life in us.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: Depression

Chapter 1: Depression Is Real

Chapter 2: Tactics of the Enemy

Chapter 3: Your Action Plan

Part 2: Overcoming Divorce

Chapter 4: No Condemnation

Chapter 5: Surviving Divorce

Chapter 6: The New Spouse

Part 3: Overcoming Critical Illness

Chapter 7: Making a Decision

Chapter 8: This Is Not God

Chapter 9: Causes

Chapter 10: Fighting Your Battle

Chapter 11: Be Restoration-Minded

Conclusion

Prayer Of Salvation

Study Guide

References

Coming Soon

FOREWORD

In reading Marion’s book, I am reminded afresh that her life, as I have observed and known it for many years, is a case study in integrity and endurance. In the pages of this very real and honest account, you will find not only highlight reels but outtakes, mistakes, and retakes, days of great courage along with moments of weakness.

You will find this book refreshingly transparent and honest as Marion lays it all out, with the purpose of exposing the enemy in his tactics against all of us. She shares these difficult experiences in their reality to let you, her readers, know that you can do all things through Christ (the anointing), which strengthens you. You can find God’s way through any battle on earth.

As a friend and witness to her life for the last twenty years, I have watched Marion stand up time after time after seemingly endless battles with the courage, character, and endurance that can only come from the strong faith developed and displayed in her walk with God. In these pages, you have the privilege of looking into and learning from this real-life account of a modern-day giant slayer and hope-giving champion. You will find encouragement and hope in this amazing woman’s testimony that no matter how hopeless your situation, you too can be victorious.

Marion’s life reminds me of the passage in 2 Corinthians 4:8–18. She has been pressed on every side but not destroyed. She has learned to speak her faith and to look to the unseen and the eternal. You will discover in these words that the only way out is to go through, and no matter how many times the enemy hits you, you have the resources to come out as more than a conqueror.

We are all on our journey in our faith walk, and this book will be an invaluable tool in helping you along your way. You can be confident in the insights and advice from this time-proven warrior who gives all the glory to God. I speak the words of John 10:10 over Marion’s life because it’s her time for that Zoe life and that more abundantly.

Pastor Gary Hooper, New Covenant Ministries Church

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

INTRODUCTION

This book is the story and journey of a very ordinary Christian woman, one who loves Jesus and believes His word and wants nothing more than to live for Him, a woman who has faith and speaks the word of God over her life.

Like many of you, I was doing all the right things, all the things I had been taught, but was not living in the victory I knew God wanted for me. Many of you, like I was, are wondering, What is wrong with me? Is there something about me that God is just not happy with? Why do I feel this way?

This book may not be what you are expecting. It is very raw and honest, and it definitely does not contain churchy or Christianese phrases or canned pat answers. Can anyone be brave enough with me to admit we absolutely cannot stand that?

I believe it contains real answers to very real and all too common problems in the body of Christ today that no one wants to admit or talk about. This is about real life, pressures, tests, decisions, and real consequences. There are hard issues dealt with here, those that will definitely challenge you, but I believe in you. You can handle this.

This book will make you laugh, cry, shout, dance, and maybe scream, but one thing I can tell you is that you will get answers. I have read a hundred self-help books, and the thing that makes this different is more the practical day-to-day how-to. I am a person who wants to know the process, not theory, and I am delivering this to you today. My prayer and desire is to help everyone who reads this book realize how much God loves them and that real victory is not only available to them but close within their reach.

I had my first real encounter with the unconditional love of God when I was deep in the pit of depression and had given up on everything I had been taught to do to live a victorious and prosperous Christian life. I had all the books, and I bet you do too: books like such-and-such steps to financial prosperity, how to keep the devil off your back, how to live in victory, ten things every Christian wife needs to know, and so on. There is a book on how to overcome every imaginable problem we may face. I am not knocking on these books and teachings. I am writing one right now. They are vital to our growth and maturity, and I am thankful for every anointed minister who shares their gifts in this way.

What many of us do not realize, however, is that there is no formula, no matter how good the book is. No one, two, three, and poof you’ve arrived. There is only an honest and sincere heart of love and obedience before God and standing in and on His Word.

During these times, many years ago I believed I had been doing all of the very sound biblical principles I had been taught, and nothing ever went the way I thought it was supposed to. I was tithing but never getting ahead financially. I was submitting to and respecting my husband, but never feeling like I was receiving the love I expected. I was continually putting the Word in my heart, confessing scripture over things I wanted in my life but never seeing them come to pass.

Years went by like this, and I became more and more discouraged and angry. I did not understand why God would do things for other people and not for me. Of course when you are living as a discouraged and angry person, it tends to spill over into your relationships, especially your marriage. I had become a resentful, cynical, bitter, and offendable person, and as a result, my marriage was falling apart. There was a seed of bitterness toward my husband because, of course, I figured I was doing everything right. So it must be him. Can anyone identify?

This is just where the devil likes to find people. This is where he will start to whisper lies into your ear like, God does not love you. You will never be good enough. It’s that spouse of yours. or You are a complete failure.

Sure enough, he came along whispering those things to me. I came to the point where I was so disheartened with God and what I thought He was that I literally yelled at Him, I am not doing this anymore! If I have to jump through all these hoops and do everything perfect to get You to love me or do anything in my life, then I just give up.

And I did. I stopped confessing the Word and studying my Bible. I cut back on church attendance, and I talked to God with very raw honesty and bluntness only when I felt like it.

I have a bit of a spitfire personality, and if I get upset, I can get very spiteful. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and had to be a bit of a scrapper to get home from school in one piece a lot of the time. Because this was in me, a bit of that spiteful scrapper came out, and my thought process went a little like this, I’ve done everything right, and it’s not working. So I’m just going to do everything wrong. I still loved God but was very disappointed in Him, if you can imagine such a thing.

I had been in a very dark and lonely place for a long time and really did not care if I lived or died. I am being very honest here because I am certain there are those of you who feel or felt that way and would never admit it out loud. You might not even admit it to God.

Let me encourage you with what I discovered through this time of doing everything wrong and being angry, depressed, bitter, and disappointed. The Spirit of God never once for a moment took His presence from me. I guess I expected that He would, but He never did. I remember being in my rebellious, not giving a rip about anything moments, and my thoughts would sometimes turn toward God. And a warm feeling would come over me.

This continued on for a couple of years. Every time I would talk to God in my raw, blunt way, even with a glass of wine in my hand, His love would seep into me. My lightning-fast mind finally caught up with my spirit after a while. God did not love me based on how much scripture I confessed or how much I tithed, attended church, prayed, or read my Bible. He just simply loved me. I was doing nothing for Him—and had not for a while—and He still loved me. I felt God’s love and presence more during this time than I had ever felt in my entire Christian walk—more than when I had been leading the prayer team and super kid program or teaching in the Bible school.

Does this surprise you? Well, it sure did me. I had always been told, God cares more about you than about what you do, but I never really knew it until then. Remember in the movie Avatar when the female character looks at Sully and says I see you? That’s how I felt with God at that time. I really saw Him. He is love. I was so excited when I found this in scripture too. Job said the same thing in Job 42:5 (TLB), I have heard of you but now I see you.

None of us wants to go through the magnitude of trials I did, and I’m not saying we need to. If we do, however, what a reward to receive at the end. It’s life-changing. I really believe God would rather have honesty out of our hearts that is not pretty than false flattery for public show. Who do we think we are fooling anyway? He is a big God; He can handle it. God sees your heart, and He can work with honesty.

Looking back now, I realize all that effort in my own strength to please God and trying to get Him to do something for me was the whole problem. It was formulas and religious activity motivated in my benefit rather than a sincere heart of love. God cannot bless human effort, and I cannot earn His favor. He gave me His word to declare over my life as a gift because He loves me, not as a homework assignment to earn a gold star and a reward. I needed to have a revelation of the unconditional love of God just for me because I’m me. In my pit of despair, as ugly as it was, I got it. This period changed my life forever because it changed the way I thought about, loved, looked at, and served God.

I would love to be able to say that was it, that everything was rosy after that, but that was not so. I am very thankful that God did not give up on me during my wacky period and finally got through to me. He knew what I did not: I was about to face the fight of my life. I needed to know how much God loved me in order to survive the life-or-death challenge that came next.

My journey involves three trials that are life-altering in themselves, but more often than not, one will lead to or be affected by the other. Once the enemy gets his foot in the door, he is relentless in his efforts to destroy every area of our lives. This is why we need to be wise to his tactics and resist him before he can gain any territory. Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James